The Goblin's Crown

Chapter Ten: Cat and Mouse

"Take me back!" I growled. I paced the sitting room on shivering, dirty legs, and bleeding feet. "Take me back and help me kill them!" I stopped and turned toward my goblin suitor...fiancé now...and pleaded with him. "I want to set the entire city on fire and watch everyone in it choke on the stench of their own burning fat!" He smiled with pleasure gleaming in his dark eyes. I knew what I looked like to him and what I sounded like. Goblin.

Knut crossed his long legs as he sat in a leather upholstered chair. He took a faerie fruit from a bowl beside him and took a bite. His many sharp teeth broke the fruit's skin with an audible snap. "That sounds quite fun. An excellent way to spend the honeymoon, I think, but we need to focus on our nuptials and coronations first. I've already put it off too long as it is and I don't think Kai will tolerate another delay."

"Can you make some time in your busy schedule to go after Jasper at the very least?" I asked. Before my eyes flashed images of Rolland and Rhys' deaths. Over and over again, I watched them die every time I blinked my eyes.

Tossing the fruit to waiting servants, Knut rose from his chair and crossed the room to me. His long, thin fingers lightly rubbed my arms. "We will deal with him too, soon enough." He promised. The sugary sweet aroma of the fruit lingered on his frigid breath.

I winced as his fingers brushed over a lash wound and pushed his hands away. "Soon is too far away," I said, growling through bared teeth, "I can't stand the thought of him still breathing while Rolland and Rhys are rotting in the ground."

"Don't you think your revenge will be made all the sweeter if you were to appear to him, a powerful queen, rather than the beaten, hurt girl that stands before me now?" He tilted his head, trying to peer into my eyes to read my expression. I haven't a clue what he saw, but he stopped grinning at me. At least for the moment. He took one of my bruised hands in one of his own. My hand looked like a baby's against the length of his'. He tugged at it, coaxing me towards the door. "For now, let us get you healed and cleaned up. As is tradition, there will be a feast tonight to celebrate tomorrow's coronation."

I dragged my feet. "The coronation's tomorrow?" I sounded as if the noose was still tight around my throat, cutting off my breath. "Can you not wait at least one more day? I almost died today, I'm not looking forward to repeating my near-death experience tomorrow."

"You have nothing to fear." He said as his power over me took hold and my feet were once again his slaves. "You are not going to die. You will be in no danger of dying."

"But you said-"

"That the battle between you and Freya would be one of wit, rather than brawn. A series of riddles. A maze filled to the brim with traps. But if my plan works, and I've chosen my bride as well as I think, your tests won't have to go that far and you'll help me win my crown all at the same time." He guided me down the glittering hall. All around us, the little goblins scrambled to get out of our way while merrily gossiping about the big party ahead. Goblin servants carried around bottles of wine bigger than their entire bodies and dragged squealing half-dead pigs and plucked geese towards the kitchens while others busily cleaned and readied the palace to gleam in its full grandeur. He finally stopped at a door between two portraits of previous goblin queens sitting with their hideous babies in their laps. I averted my gaze to the golden floor beneath my battered feet and dared not lift my eyes again. "Here we are." He said. I jumped to the side as a parade of goblin tailors carried opulent dresses, jewels, and cosmetics into the room. "This will be your quarters for the next few days until everything is settled."

The room was similar to Freya's bedroom. The walls were gilded with gold and floral patterns were carved into them. A large tub sat on one end of the room, being filled with steaming buckets of water that the goblins passed one to the other in a seamless chain. On the other side, sat a vanity like Freya's. The tailors waited for me patiently there, standing the dresses up by themselves, without the aid of a body to wear them. I stood among that grandeur, staring at it with an indifferent gaze, my mouth tasting so foully bitter, I struggled not to retch. "You promise that once this is done...once I'm your wife and you are king...then you'll help me take my revenge on Jasper?" I asked, looking back at him over my bloody shoulder.